Quotes About Criticism

Though Israel may often be deserving of criticism, what is missing is the comparable criticism of equal or greater violations by other countries and other groups. This constant, often legitimate criticism of Israel for every one of its deviations, when coupled with the absence of legitimate criticism of others, creates the impression currently prevalent on university campuses and in the press that Israel is among the worst human rights violators in the world....it is not true, but if it is repeated often enough, it takes on a reality of its own.

I'm always very careful to make the distinction between music criticism and music journalism. A lot of people don't. But criticism doesn't require reporting. You can write criticism at home in your underwear. On the other hand, journalism takes legwork - you have to get out there and see things and talk to people.

People who avoid all criticism fail. It's destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.

Every man of character will have that character questioned. Every man of honor and courage will be faced with unjust criticism, but never forget that unjust criticism has no impact whatsoever upon the truth. And the only sure way to avoid criticism is to do nothing and be nothing.

Destructive criticism is the biggest single enemy of human potential. It is worse than cancer or heart disease. While those diseases can ultimately lead to the deterioration and death of an individual, destructive criticism kills the soul of the person but leaves the body walking around.

I play in New York, man. Criticism is part of the game. You take criticism as a challenge.

My overall approach toward art is to remain as open as possible in front of the world, to always be curious, not to be afraid to experiment, and have a sense of self-criticism and a general criticism toward the surrounding. Also, trying to make a difference between serious research and pure gag! And making as few compromises as possible toward doing things that might not be accepted by the majority of society, even if this dominant society is the one which is ruling the art world. To keep this fundamental idea, even if it's a bit trivial: to have the desire to transform the world.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

There is rampant among us a spirit of criticism. Men and women who carry heavy responsibility do not need criticism, they need encouragement.

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work, I'll leave that for others to decide.

I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so.

Failing once doesn't make you a failure. One difference between a successful person and an average person is how much criticism they can take, the average person cannot take much criticism and that's why they fail to be leaders and they do remain average all their lives

Doubt is an element of criticism, and the tendency of criticism is necessarily skeptical.

Your regional newspaper, and I like to use this example, in your local museum buys a Picasso, that's news especially if they've spent $10 million for it. But if you don't have a credit on your staff then you don't have anybody who's confident to say whether or not it was a good Picasso, might even be aware of the fact that there are bad Picassos. Arts journalists who don't have the experience of criticism, the skill of criticism, don't think in terms of critical evaluation are not going to be as good a journalist as they might be.

I don't want to grow a thick skin. Some people say, "Oh, you're an actress, you have to get used to criticism." But I don't accept that. I'll never get used to criticism, and I'll always care about whether or not people like my performances - because I'm an entertainer, and I want to please.

Self-criticism, cruel, unsparing criticism that goes to the very root of the evil, is life and breath for the proletarian movement.

Every time you make the right choice in the face of potential criticism you build strength that makes choosing the right easier the next time. When you make it clear that you will not vary from your standards, you will be led to individuals like yourself and the criticism from others will become less intense.

Criticism is always going to be painful. You live through it. I'll live through it now. It's even harder when you're younger. You don't have the maturity. You're still developing. If you get damaged while you're developing, it's a psychological battle after that. Today, if I get the criticism, I'm not bothered...if I wear the wrong thing, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Maybe when I was younger, I might have been more affected by that.

The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.

If you pay too much attention to the criticism of the one who is inferior, then you must endure the constraints of the plane to which you have descended without feeling hurt.

If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.

The most common criticism that I've seen is that I write "popcorn fantasy": lightweight action-adventure. Some people call it that as they explain why they love it for exactly that reason. I'm cool with that, either way. I just nod and let it go.

If I were white, I'd get less criticism.

Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land.

Theater really gets damaged when there is a paucity of good criticism around.

I like criticism, but it must be my way.

Imagination is imitative-the real innovation lies in criticism.

In the Communist Party, we address problems very openly and sometimes very vocally, and we point out abuses. This is a good thing. We exercise self-criticism once a year. Although 80 percent of the members of the National Assembly are also members of the Communist Party, this does not prevent them from sharply criticizing the administrative and governmental system.

Persecution is the first law of society because it is always easier to suppress criticism than to meet it.

What if criticism is a science as well as an art? Not a pure or exact science, of course, but these phrases belong to a nineteenth-century cosmology which is no longer with us.

Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism.

In the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture and criticism might very well be summed up as the men who smile criticizing the men who laugh.

Back in the 1930s, Carl Jung, the eminent thinker and psychologist, put it this way: Criticism has 'the power to do good when there is something that must be destroyed, dissolved or reduced, but [it is] capable only of harm when there is something to be built.

DJ Spooky was meant to be a kind of ironic take on that. It was always meant to be kind of a criticism and critique of how downtown culture would separate genres and styles because it was ambiguous.

The older you get, the less seriously you take criticism. I've gotten to a point now where I ignore it completely. It's just not relevant to me anymore.

And it does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the sub-sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages- all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronized, put-down and underpaid person.'

It is a grave error for any leader to be oversensitive in the face of criticism

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.

I totally accept that it's a legitimate criticism that when you are involved in the day-to-day scrum of government that what can get lost is the narrative, the hymn sheet the song that inspires and lifts people's sights.

The purpose is to help, to prevent, to correct, to improve, rather than to punish. Criticism is not meant to punish, but rather to correct something that is preventing better results. The only goal is improvement.

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.

A hilarious academic novel that'll send you laughing (albeit ruefully) back into the trenches of the classroom. . . . [A] mordant minor masterpiece. . . . Like the best works of farce, academic or otherwise, Dear Committee Members deftly mixes comedy with social criticism and righteous outrage. By the end, you may well find yourself laughing so hard it hurts.

I am the object of criticism around the world. But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track.

Foolishness and criticism are so apt, do so naturally go together!

Art criticism, I would say, is about the most ungrateful form of 'elevated' writing I know of. It may also be one of the most challenging.. if only because so few people have done it well enough to be remembered.. but I'm not sure the challenge is worth it.

A work of morality, politics, criticism will be more elegant, other things being equal, if it is shaped by the hand of geometry.

If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain. By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks.

I believe that comedians do what they do, and then they get credit or criticism for doing it. There's nothing planned about this.